‘I’m pretty sure that’s not enforceable,’ says Sophie, her brow furrowing. She’s a stickler for rules and regulations and things. She takes out her phone.

‘Don’t google it,’ I say, warningly, and she puts her mobile back on the table, making a face because I’ve caught her out. ‘Becky’s totally right. It would never ever work. Plus, I’m starting a new job, and I’ve got a brand-new life to be getting on with.’

‘Yeah, and gorgeous men who wear nurses’ scrubs and walk into your life completely out of the blue are ten a penny in London,’ Sophie says.

‘Totally.’ Gen nods, earnestly. ‘That’s why I’ve been single for bloody eternity, and why you haven’t had sex since Sad Matthew.’

‘Don’t,’ I say, covering my whole face in my hands now. I’d had an accidental one-night stand with Matthew-from-school after Neil and I split up, and every time he got pissed he’d text long, drunken messages telling me how he thought we were the perfect couple, and how it wasn’t too late. In the end, I’d blocked him, feeling only about five per cent guilty. The rest of me was deliriously happy to have him out of my hair.

‘Anyway. You can’t let him just slip through your fingers.’ Gen looks up at the waiter and asks for some more drinks and a plate of chips to share. It’s half ten in the morning and my stomach contracts with horror at the thought.

‘He’s hardly going to slip through my fingers. He’s sleeping in the room next door.’

‘And Becky’s on the second floor. She’ll never know,’ says Gen, waggling her eyebrows. ‘You can just sneak into his room after dark. That’s quite romantic.’

‘Or creepy,’ said Sophie, pulling a face. ‘Honestly, I’m sure Becky would be fine. Maybe when she said no couples, she probably meant it as in no couples moving into the flat, not that you all had to take a vow of chastity when you signed the lease.’

I make a face. I think Becky was pretty bloody unequivocal about it. ‘I think that’s probably just as well. I think keeping a vow of chastity with him in the room next door might be pretty much impossible.’

I think of Alex reaching up to get something from the cupboard and the sight of his bare skin underneath his T-shirt and the way it felt when I was standing beside him and my arms were all prickly with goose bumps and I give a tiny shiver of anticipation. Maybe when I go back, the best thing to do would just be to get it out in the open. Ask him out for a drink. There’s nothing wrong with asking someone out for a drink, is there? And if it happens to lead to something else, well . . .

Chapter Three: Jess

Chapter Three

Jess

3rd January, London